


one shot made liberty valance fall

by shamefulshameless



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dave POV, Klaus pov, Lots of Angst, M/M, canon typical violence and drug use, yearningTM
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:29:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26484199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shamefulshameless/pseuds/shamefulshameless
Summary: As time goes on, he thinks about the date less and less. When February 21st, 1964 rolls around, he thinks 'four years left' for about thirty seconds before going back to what he was doing. He doesn’t have the time to count down to his own death, any more than he has the time to wonder if the strange man he’d met in Dallas was anything more than a snake oil salesman, far too devoted to his craft. Dave has to hand it to him: he gave one hell of a performance.orIn Vietnam, in Dallas, in San Francisco, Klaus and Dave think of each other. Never at the same time.
Relationships: Klaus Hargreeves/David "Dave" Katz
Comments: 36
Kudos: 104





	one shot made liberty valance fall

**Author's Note:**

> justice for the three (3) facts we know about dave!!!

_Fall, 1963_

The bus to basic training is bright, hot, and noisy. It seems as if everyone else knows someone already- the boys in the seats around him have been talking and laughing since they left, as if they’re going to football practice and not a military base. Dave feels particularly stupid and not much more mature, sitting on a seat by himself and worrying whether or not he’ll be liked, as if that’s something that could matter here. 

Sunlight streams in through the cracked windows; even though it’s a brisk November afternoon, the tin can they’re traveling in seals in the heat like Dave can’t believe. He wipes sweat off his lip. He tries to convince himself that the heat is the only reason it’s there.

And every few minutes, he looks out the window. 

What he’s expecting, he’s not sure. But some part of him, from the moment he woke up this morning, has been waiting for a disruption. At the bus station, between his sister clasping her hands over his and his father’s and uncle’s hearty claps on the shoulder, Dave had an overwhelming feeling of claustrophobia. He’d kept his eye on the door, waiting. Waiting. 

Even on the bus, now miles outside Dallas, Dave finds himself waiting, scanning the passersby, looking for a mop of dark hair and a glimmer of jewelry. 

He doesn’t know what he wants Klaus to do, exactly. Dave thinks even if he were to show up precisely the way he’s imagining, he wouldn’t go with him. He’d tell him the same thing he’d said last week. This is what he’d signed up for. 

Still, he wants to see Klaus again, just to hear him say more unbelievable bullshit, just to not believe a word he says. He doesn’t know why. Maybe this is what Klaus’ game is, this is how he cons you. That must be it. This feeling of anticipation, of impending rescue, it’s all a part of his big dove scam.

As Dave tells himself this, he remembers the feeling of his own name, imprinted in metal, rushing along the skin of his thumb. Katz, David J. He can feel it still. As clearly as he remembers Klaus’ face when he’d told him about his plans to enlist, his wide eyed terror. He looks around the bus and wonders if any of these boys had gotten the same song and dance from the man in the shiny blue shirt. 

He wonders if any of them packed his pamphlet at the bottom of their bag, too.

* * *

_Spring, 1960_

  
It was the first thing Klaus had done. He plans on telling Dave one day, when it's all over, that it was the very first thing he had done.

On that first morning in Dallas, Klaus put down the magazine Ben had pointed out to him, the one emblazoned with the date. “Well, what now?” Ben said, looking down the street listlessly. “Should we wait?”

“For what?” Klaus replied blearily, his mind still half occupied with the nausea he’d been feeling since he’d flushed his pills. 

“For the others. It is time travel, right? For all we know, they could be showing up any minute, maybe it would… Klaus?”

Ben stopped talking when he realized he wasn’t being listened to. Klaus was standing on the corner of the sidewalk, facing the building behind him. His limbs were frozen, eyes wide.

“Ben,” he gulped. “Where are we?”

“1960, have you already-“

“No, no,” Klaus waved him off, still gazing at the sign. _“Where?”_

Dallas BBQ. Klaus read it once, twice, three times. He whirled around and saw the bank across the street. Dallas. The dumpsters. Keep Dallas clean.

It rushed over him like a bucket of ice cold water. Of course he'd landed here, he thought as he spotted a taxi turning the corner, heading for them. “Ben,” he said, “Quick, how much money do you have?”

Ben blinked at him. “Seriously?” He gestured to himself.

“Wh- oh, yeah.”

Klaus searched himself for money, but found none. Feeling desperate, he considered jumping in front of the taxi to get the driver’s attention, at least ask for directions. Ben seemed to know what’s on his mind; he knew all of Klaus’ craziest impulses after all these years. 

“Don’t even think about it.”

Klaus was already stretching, ready to hurl himself off the curb. “Got any better ideas?”

“Yes, a thousand. What is so important that you’d be willing to do this?”

He shook his head as Klaus ignored him in favor of a new, less potentially dangerous plan. Still leering, he plowed right through Ben- “Dude!”- and into the phone booth behind him, counting on 1960 not to let him down, counting on a phone book.

Forty minutes later, Klaus stands in front of Glen Oaks hardware store. 

His fingers tremble as he stares at the door handle. Just go in. Just go in. Ben abandoned him halfway through the walk here, promising he’d meet up with him again later, wanting to stay behind and wait for the others. Klaus is glad- he wouldn’t want Ben to see what he might do in there.

Just go in. He can’t make out the face behind the counter from here. Just go in.

And say what, he wants to shout back at the encouraging little voice. Tell the truth? Klaus isn’t good at that under normal circumstances, but this? Better not to set any goal at all. He knows if he does, then he’s more likely to run. All he needs is to see him again. He just needs to lay eyes on him, hear his voice. 

That’s all he’s wanted in the days it’s been since Dave died, after all. To lay eyes on him one more time. He’s been staying up all hours of the night, listing things in his head- things he would give up to be standing right here. But now that it’s real, Klaus sort of wants to bolt.

He takes a deep breath and walks inside. The man behind the counter looks up. Klaus’ first thought at the realization that it isn’t Dave, but a man in his late forties, is one of relief.

 _Thank God,_ he thinks. _I wasn’t ready._

He leaves without asking about Dave. Ben catches up with him outside Statdler’s. Klaus gets kicked out.

* * *

_Spring, 1964_

The date Klaus had given him rattles around in Dave’s head for a while. 

February 21st. He thinks he had a friend in school who had a birthday that day. Maybe it had been January. 

February 21st. Sometimes he thinks of it when he readjusts his dog tags on his chest.

When they’d first issued them to him, he triple checked them, looked for any infinitesimal difference between them and the ones Klaus had pressed into his hands that afternoon. He doesn’t find any. Perfectly fine, he tells himself, it doesn’t mean anything. After all, it’s just objective information about Dave. Klaus could’ve gotten it anywhere. Somewhere. Where?

But mostly, he doesn’t think about Klaus at all. He simply doesn’t have the time to. It isn’t long after Johnson takes over that the number of troops being sent into the shit skyrockets. Dave sees death, narrowly avoids it, feels shrapnel in his leg before he’s old enough to rent a car. 

And for some reason, he keeps coming back. When his first tour is up, Dave watches friends pack up and go home, shaking, empty. And he comes back. 

He desperately wants to believe it isn’t because he’s running away from his family, from himself and the truth that’s getting harder and harder to ignore. But out here, Dave has been getting much worse at lying to himself than he used to be.

As time goes on, he thinks about the date less and less. When February 21st, 1964 rolls around, he thinks _four years left_ for about thirty seconds before going back to what he was doing. He doesn’t have the time to count down to his own death, any more than he has the time to wonder if the strange man he’d met in Dallas was anything more than a snake oil salesman, far too devoted to his craft. 

Dave has to hand it to him: he gave one hell of a performance.

* * *

_Winter, 1961_

Klaus frets over a wrinkled palm, making sure to let out a loud _hmmm_ every few minutes so old Mrs. Finkel really feels like she’s getting her money’s worth.

There’s a line behind her, debutantes and businessmen alike, all craning their necks to see what he’s going to tell her. They’re all here for him: word of his fantastical abilities had sped through the bored socialites of Dallas like wildfire, and now his life mainly consists of sitting on lavish living room floors like this one and pretending he knows how to read palms.

“Tell her I made a mistake,” barks the ghost at his shoulder. Unfortunately, not all of his powers are bullshit.

The late Mr. Finkel is just as pinched and snooty looking as his wife, though several heads shorter.

“He says…” Klaus repeats slowly and dramatically, savoring how the room falls silent. “...He made… a mistake.”

A murmur shoots down the line. Mrs. Finkel puts her free hand to her pearls. “What? What mistake?” she asks breathlessly. 

Klaus peeks up at the ghost, ignoring his entire bare ass that hangs out of his hospital gown. “Well?” he demands.

Horace grunts. “I should’ve written her out of the will.”

Klaus’ shoulders drop. “C'mon, man,” he mutters, facade slipping. “That’s bad for business.”

“What’s that?” Mrs. Finkel asks eagerly.

“Nothing,” Klaus grandly reassures her. “I’m just… communing once again with the spirit.” He whispers out of the corner of his mouth: “Fine. Who needs you.”

Turning back to her, Klaus raises his voice so the whole room can hear. “Horace says… he did not cherish you enough. His mistake was that he could not stay.”

As Mrs. Finkel starts blubbering into her embroidered silk handkerchief and Mr. Finkel starts yelling about how he said no such thing to the bossy old bat, Klaus steals a glance at Ben. He’s leaned up against a column, eyebrows raised. 

“Are we done?” he asks for the hundredth time this week.

Klaus ignores him. He’s not done. He hasn’t milked these old coots for all they’re worth. And that’s why he hasn’t gone to see Dave- the only reason. He’ll get to it. When he’s ready.

* * *

_Summer, 1966_

  
The first time Dave gets shot, he can’t believe how wrong everyone has always been. 

He’s been hearing nonstop about the sensation of it, but nothing he’s heard has even come close. He doesn’t understand how people describe it at all. He’s been set on fire, that’s the only way to put it.

Dave gets lucky, or so they tell him over and over and over. He gets to go to the nearby base, the real one with real buildings and a real hospital. He lays in his bed- a bed! a pillow! sheets!- and stares up at the white ceiling for a long time. The bandages around his middle restrict his movement a lot, so his only options are really to lay flat or stand still. He’s hopelessly bored.

The guy in the bed next to him has started to stink. A wound in his foot is wickedly infected, ‘gangrenous’ is a word he's heard being thrown around. Any day now they’re bound to amputate it, but the kid himself hasn’t seemed to put that together yet. He’s nice, Dave thinks. 

He’s young, bespectacled, with dark skin and a wide, blinding smile. His name is Eli, and he seems to be in higher spirits than other boys who are in much better shape than he is. He always makes conversation with Dave as soon as the nurses bustle away.

“So, this is your second tour?” he asks out of the blue, the same way all their conversations start.

“Third.”

Eli’s eyes widen. “Damn. No offense, but- Jesus, why the hell would you do that?”

Dave uses most of his remaining energy to shrug. 

“Good for you, I guess,” Eli says. 

“They sending you home?” Dave asks.

Eli smiles his winning smile. “I’m thinking so. I don’t see how they can’t. Not super useful at the moment, am I?” he wiggles the leg that’s suspended from the ceiling. “Who knew all I’d have to do to get out was walk through the wrong creek.”

“Shoulda done it months ago,” Dave chuckles.

“Yeah!" Eli says enthusiastically. "My mother’s gonna be furious when she finds that out!” 

When they finally remove the foot, Dave watches warily as they wheel Eli’s bed back into its place. For lack of anything better to do, and since Eli doesn’t seem to have many friends around here, Dave waits vigilantly for him to wake up.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, he’s not in bad spirits. 

“Could be worse,” he says groggily. “My friend a few months ago lost both arms. Both of ‘em, lobbed off at the exact same spot. I mean, Davey, at least I can hold a damn fork.”

Dave laughs. “I guess you can.”

They get closer as the days pass, not just because they’re the only two here who literally can’t sit up to talk to anybody else. 

Eli gets letters every day. He has a big family, he says, and once a week they have a standing appointment to sit around their dining room table and write him letters over supper. They send them one at a time, so he gets at least one envelope every day. Sometimes they include newspaper scraps, photographs, or children's drawings. When he asks Dave if he wants to see anything he gets sent, Dave always says yes, even when they send an ache through his ribcage.

Since he’s been in Vietnam, Dave has gotten three pieces of mail. 

His own family, for all their talk about the honour of war, seems to take little interest in it now that he’s there. He can’t say he’s surprised- they’ve never been the warm and fuzzy types. But still, his mother, on her deathbed, had made Dave’s father swear to look after him the way he deserved. 

Looking at Eli’s mail, Dave has yet to make up his mind about whether or not he deserves this.

“What’s that?” Dave tears his eyes away from Eli’s mother’s signature and points to something small and black peeking out of Eli’s blankets.

Taking the letter back, Eli beams. “Oh man, I can’t believe I haven’t shown you yet. Check it out.” He pulls the thing out- it looks like a paperback book- and tosses it Dave’s way. It lands awkwardly at his side.

When he holds it up to his face and reads the title, Dave feels like he’s been shot again. 

Frank Herbert  
DUNE

“Shit, Davey. Did it bite you?” Eli chuckles. 

“Wh-“

“You just jumped about a foot in the air.”

Dave is too caught up to answer. The book is a detail he’s largely forgotten in the years since he’s been here. It had been gibberish, nonsense, the thing he’d said that Dave could always point to as evidence that the whole thing was crap. _Dune_ was bullshit.

But _Dune_ is real.

“What is this?” he asks.

“It’s a book, genius. A goddamn great one, I couldn’t put it down. I’ve already read it twice, you can borrow it if you want. I gotta talk to someone about the ending anyway.”

“No,” Dave finds himself saying, reaching to hand it back over. “I’m good. I don't wanna read it.”

“For real? I think you’d like it.”

That’s the problem.

“Yeah, maybe.”

The book sits on the low table between them for the next few days, mocking him. Dave tries to resist the urge to read it, but finally, when Eli is asleep and there’s nothing to do, he gives in.

Every time he turns the page, Dave curses under his breath. This is a _really_ good book.

* * *

_Spring, 1962_

On his way out of Dallas, Klaus stops at Glen Oaks again. He tells the bus driver to stop all the way down the block so Dave won’t see it, if Dave is in there at all. 

As Klaus gets closer to the storefront, he feels his chest seizing up, his jaw clenching harder, and maybe his teeth will crack into little pieces and spill out onto the sidewalk. That would be a good excuse to turn around. 

This time, he sees him. Just the back of his head, restocking a shelf behind the counter. His shirt is orange, he needs a haircut. He turns his head slightly to the side as a customer gets his attention. Klaus catches a glimpse of his eyes.

“Nope,” he mutters to himself, and turns around. He heads back the way he came, trying to decide if he’s being a coward or not. Maybe it’s the last thing Dave needs, to be bombarded by a freak in a costume, to be faced with things about himself he isn’t ready to face yet. Maybe Klaus is being kind.

As he climbs back onto the bus, raising his hands to his forehead in greeting, he thinks the light blue color of his followers’ clothes is going to make him feel sick.

It’s just a little too familiar.

* * *

_Spring, 1967_

When Dave sees Klaus again, he doesn’t recognize him at first. 

It’s been a few years, for starters, and so much has happened between then and now that Klaus’ face is less clear in his head than it used to be. 

So when Dave looks up from his cot at the loud noise, the flash of bright light, for a moment he sees a stranger. He realizes it’s him a moment too late; Sarge bursts into the tent and all of Dave’s confusion has to wait.

He watches Klaus stumble into a uniform, a deer in headlights. Dave can’t stop himself from wondering: _...is he here for me?_

If anyone he’d ever met were to materialize here out of thin air, it would be Klaus, wouldn't it? 

Dave tries to catch his eye as they gear up and file into the bus, but Klaus doesn’t seem to take much notice of him. Dave sits near the back, like always, so he sees Klaus amble on board, clutching a black briefcase with white knuckles. He looks terrified. His eyes meet Dave’s and pass right by, like he’s just another stranger.  
  
Typically, Dave avoids talking on the way to the front- too easy to get caught up in his feelings that way- but today, he finds a seat near Klaus and tests the waters. 

“You just get in country?” he asks.

“Yeah.” Up close, Klaus looks different than how Dave remembers, and it isn’t just the haircut. Although he seems more terrified than he had been in Dallas, he seems lighter somehow. Every time Klaus had looked at him in ‘63, there had been a heaviness to him- as if talking to Dave was something that hurt. Even when he’d mostly forgotten the details of Klaus’ face, he remembered the way he always seemed on the verge of tears when he spoke.

Today, he’s jittery, panicked, but not like that. In fact, he doesn’t seem to remember Dave at all. 

“I’m Dave,” he reminds him.

“Klaus.” Dave remembers that smile, actually- that he remembers well.

“You don’t recognize me, do you?” he asks lightly.

Klaus raises his eyebrows. “We’ve met?”

They go back and forth a few times, but Klaus clearly doesn’t know him. Dave refrains from telling him about the dog tags, or the date. February 21st. Instead, he changes the subject. And they have their first conversation of many wherein Klaus talks brazenly and Dave listens, feeling lucky just to be near him at all.

When they head back to base that night, Dave stares at Klaus ruffling his hair, blowing smoke out of the side of his mouth. His gut stirs. This is a very different person.

* * *

_Winter, 1962_

  
The compound sits thirty minutes outside San Francisco. To get there, visitors and worshippers have to take a long, winding road. (Klaus relays a scripture about this path to his followers that they find so moving, they engrave it onto a wooden sign at its entrance. When he sees it for the first time, he sends a silent apology to wherever teenage Paul McCartney is right now.)

The road goes through a heavy forest, up the sides of steep hills, and lets out into a huge field where they’ve built their community. Bright blue cabins and tents are sprawled everywhere with no real organization, people dance and drum in circles. The biggest building sits right at its center- the Prophet’s quarters.

And today, scampering out its back door, crouched low to the ground, is the Prophet.

Klaus runs as fast as he can, praying he’s not seen and stopped by one of his ‘children’. He feels like he might throw up. He doesn’t stop until he’s at least thirty yards into the woods, where no one would see him if they peered in from the treeline. 

He reaches out blindly for support, collapsing against a tree and sinking to the forest floor. Klaus breathes a sigh of relief as he shoves his head between his knees. That was a close one.

He’d come into his cabin, only to see seven or eight of his followers sitting on his living room floor in a cloud of smoke. Immediately, alarm bells went off in his head. That smell was not a good smell. He knew because it smelled so fucking good. 

Ben spoke from behind him.“Oh no.”

The group looked up and saw Klaus, breaking into groggy but excited cries. Come join us, Prophet. 

They said it was “opium.” But Klaus knew the difference between opium and heroin, even from here. He felt his whole body almost taking control of itself, wanting to lurch for it. He had to leave, he had to run. 

If only his old parole officers could see him now. They’d be proud that he chose to flee and gag against a tree, he thinks. Ben seems proud, anyway.

“That was great,” he says. “Really, Klaus.”

Klaus waves him off. “Give me a minute.”

“Are you sure?” Ben says, worry in his voice. 

“I’m fine. Just a minute.”

Ben frowns before leaving. 

Since they’d moved in here, Klaus has found a lot of solace in the forest. Whenever he needs a moment of peace, this is where he comes. There’s something about the smell of wild grass, the feeling of mud between his fingers, the way sunlight scatters on the ground after passing through the leaves. It calms him down, like a giant stiff drink, like a soft bed. He isn’t sure why- he’d never been very outdoorsy.

Leaning up against the scratchy bark of the massive redwood, Klaus takes a few deep breaths, lets the craving pass. He listens to the insects humming.

When he opens his eyes, he sees dirt caked onto the edges of his expensive white shoe. He’d stepped in a patch of wet mud- his socks are damp. And suddenly it makes perfect sense why he finds the woods so comforting.

He closes his eyes again and pretends that it’s a jungle. He pretends he can feel someone else sitting beside him.

* * *

_Summer, 1967_

Dave pulls his worn copy of Dune out of his bag.

“See? You were right.”

Klaus looks it over casually. “Never read it. Oh, is this that movie with the hunk, the Twin Peaks guy?”

“No,” Dave laughs, flustered. “No, it’s… Dune. Remember?”

“Dave, sweet thing, there’s _so_ much I don’t remember.”

Dave takes that explanation. In fact, every time he mentions something that happened the first time they met, Klaus seems to have no idea what he’s talking about. Dave chalks it up to the drugs, or the fact that Klaus is flitty as it is, forgetful and wild. Almost everything- from people’s names to vital orders- goes in one ear and out the other. So maybe it’s that. (Although it doesn’t answer all Dave’s questions. Or even half of them).

Still, as time goes on, he thinks about the Klaus he met in 1963 less and less. The space he takes up in Dave’s head gets smaller and smaller as Now-Klaus fills him up to the brim. He's overwhelming; he overwrites all the old confusion until Then-Klaus is a sort of hazy speck in the corner of Dave's mind. Now-Klaus is all that matters. He’s funnier and he’s more impulsive and there’s so much less sadness in his eyes. 

This Klaus is everything Dave has always been too afraid to want. So that Klaus doesn’t matter anymore. 

He stops bringing up the time they’d met before. It sounds childish, but he doesn’t want Klaus to think he’s some kind of weirdo. He wants Klaus to like him- maybe a little too badly.

No one makes the first move, he concludes. In all the months after, Dave can’t for the life of him remember who leaned in first, whose gaze got heavier that night in the back of the bar. All he knows was there was a kiss, and another, and a sticky, cramped bathroom that suddenly seemed like the best place in the world. 

Two weeks later, on patrol, he looks at the light the setting sun casts on Klaus’ dirty face. Klaus catches his eye and grins at him, making fun of him, unaware that he’s probably the most interesting thing in the world right now, the most beautiful. If Dave was a poet he would write something about the golden red sun, how it feels sometimes like Klaus is made of it, how when it touches his skin it looks so much more at home than when it touches Dave’s. But he’s not a poet. So he just keeps staring. 

Who cares that it’s only eight months until February. 

* * *

_Spring, 1963_

  
The people of Haight-Ashbury really get Klaus. 

He walks the streets, sometimes flanked by a group of fawning blue gnats, sometimes solo. No one ever recognizes him as the Prophet From That Compound if he doesn’t have the cronies with him, so usually that’s what he prefers- he doesn’t get overcharged that way. 

Today, he’d snuck out of the compound claiming a spirit journey and ended up here. Everyone on the street calls out to him; they don’t know him, but they can see he’s one of them. This is hippie utopia, the sound of different instruments flying out every window, always a little whiff of grass in the air. They all call it ‘grass’ around here, which Klaus thinks is so amusing he barely cares that he can’t smoke any. 

As he turns into a cramped record store, he sees Ben chuckle. 

“What?” Klaus asks.

“Nothing.”

“No, what?”

Ben looks around. “Dad would hate it here.”

They both laugh their way into the store, Ben pointing out things that Reginald would disapprove of and doing a pretty solid impression of him pointing out why. Around here, no one ever looks twice when Klaus talks with the empty air.

He flips through the rows of vinyls, Ben at his shoulder telling him which ones to stop at. For the first time in Klaus’ adult life, he has a lot of money and no addiction to flush it all down into. He’s been spending like a maniac.

Music is the only thing he can really buy for Ben, so he doesn’t hold back. He’s stacking a seventh .45 for him when two sounds catch his ear. 

The first: a song begins to play from the radio behind the register.

The second: a girl in the back with a leaf braided into her hair yelling: “Turn this hawk shit off!”

_When Liberty Valance rode to town, the womenfolk would hide-_

The clerk changes the station before the end of the first line. 

It's like a bowling ball has been dropped on his chest. Klaus clears his throat and addresses the clerk quietly. “Um,“ he tries to ask as evenly as he can, “What’s that song?”

The loud girl replies, barely looking up from the folk section. “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” she sneers. “It’s my dad’s favorite, I’m so sick of hearing it. Square city, y’know.”

She goes on for a minute or two, assuming Klaus is just exactly like her, talking about glorifying violence and the horrors of the American West. He barely hears her. 

He'd almost forgotten. He hadn’t thought of it in so long that he might as well have. This one little detail about Dave, this one memory, had been buried so deep it was almost gone. Klaus can’t bear thinking about all the things about Dave he’s lost already, how he wouldn’t even know it if he did. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Dave’s favourite song.

Klaus hadn’t ever actually heard the song. He’d asked Dave about music one night when they’d been able to sneak away from camp, smoking and talking into the night like they so often did.

“Okay. Favourite song.”

“You’re gonna laugh.”

“Me?” Klaus had said with a hand to his heart. “Why would I laugh?”

Dave’s ears were already going pink. “Because I’m sure your answer is something hip. See, you’re laughing already.”

Klaus had stopped explaining why he finds Dave’s vocabulary so funny. “C’mon,” he said. “It’ll keep me up at night.”

“Fine. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” Dave said it with a joking drawl that Klaus still remembers, now that this night is coming back to him. 

“I don’t know that one.”

“Really?”

“Nope, not a word.” 

“Well, good,” Dave smiled, “I don’t think you’d like it very much.”

Klaus saw the bright pink ears start to turn pale again- something would have to be done about that. 

“Okay. How does it go? Give me a taste.”

Mission accomplished- Dave almost choked. “Oh, fuck off,” he said. 

Klaus stepped forward, plucked the cigarette from Dave’s lips and threw it on the ground. “Let’s hear it. Just some of it.”

“No- no, Klaus-,” Dave stammered as Klaus made a show of straightening his vest, wiping a smudge of dirt off Dave’s cheek with his thumb, holding his hands out like he was framing a camera shot. 

Dave looked at Klaus wearily, his straightforward _you're not ever giving this one up, are you_ look.

Under his breath, Dave started to mumble a tune.

_When Liberty Valance rode to town, the womenfolk would hide, they’d hide._

He got through the first verse, then stopped and gave an uncomfortable bow. “Happy? Yeah, who needs USO.”

The way he’d sang it- not emotionally, not romantically or softly or even all that well, with his lips turned slightly up as he laughed at himself- that’s the Dave that Klaus wants to remember. Time is trying to take him away, bury him under what feels like a thousand tons of that last day: when he thinks of Dave now, his death comes to mind before nights like that one. 

Klaus leaves the record shop in a daze and chooses to try and remember the song the way Dave had sang it.

* * *

_Winter, 1967_

“Huh,” Klaus says when he’s finished. “That doesn't sound very hip at all.”

“Told you.”

Klaus shrugs, moves the hair out of Dave’s eyes. “Ever thought about a career in singing?”

They joke all the way back to camp- “I’m serious, I’d buy your records.” “Yeah, you and my sister would buy it.” “Who else do you need?”- and wordlessly break apart as they approach the others. Dave didn’t ever think he’d be the kind of person to miss touches so much, but now nearly all the time he’s not with Klaus is starting to feel like a waste. It’s a need that’s hard to swallow.

On their next leave, Klaus finds a store selling liquor so cheap it must be watered down. They buy way more than they should (it isn't watered down at all) and wake up the next morning with spectacular pains. Dave raises his right arm to inspect the burning rash that feels like it formed in the night, but is met with a raw tattoo looking up at him from the inside of his bicep.

“Klaus?” he croaks.

Klaus lets out a miserable groan from the starchy motel bed beside him.

“When did you let me get this?”

The tattoo is small, only an inch or two wide. It looks like five characters, letters in a different language most likely, but Dave can’t begin to translate them. Klaus finds it hilariously funny for ten seconds or so, before they notice the massive pattern on his own stomach. 

“God. You don’t remember at all what it says?” Dave laughs into Klaus' shoulder as they examine their new battle scars.

“Not a word. Let me see yours again.” Klaus grabs Dave’s arm indignantly. “Of course you think to get a small one.”

“I don’t know,” Dave hovers his finger over the temple design. “I kinda like this one. Very you.”

It’s then that they notice that the first five characters on Klaus’ tattoo match the letters on Dave’s arm.

"Well, it can only be one of two words, right?" Klaus chuckles. "Never thought I'd be a 'tattoo of someone's name' type of person."

“I don't think there's that much of a mystery, then. I kinda doubt I got a tattoo of my own name,” Dave says. 

“So," Klaus says after a thoughtful pause. "You think it’s just mine?” He's still smiling, but it seems like he’s nervous to hear the answer.

Dave leans in closer. “Yeah, probably,” he says simply. “I can live with that.”

“I can, too.” The smile widens.

They ask around the local shops, but they never figure out precisely what Klaus’ tattoo says.

* * *

_Fall, 1963_

Klaus is starting to lose his touch. 

There was no sudden breaking point, but the last few weeks have begun to feel stifling and just a little too weird. He can’t so much as cross the compound without a swarm of misguided suburbanites trodding on his ankles. It’s exhausting.

He sits in the center of a circle in the grass, followers fanned out all around him, watching him raptly, using every ounce of their energy. For a while, this kind of attention, this sheer level of respect was more than enough for him. But suddenly it’s gone stale like old bread. Klaus glances around and marvels at how he spent thirty years trying to avoid a shrieking mob at his back, only to create another one all on his own. 

The hand he’s holding is shaking so violently that Klaus couldn't see anything in it, even if he _was_ a palm reader. He used to put a lot of effort into selling these sort of performances. Today, though, he just doesn’t have it in him. The bearded man he’s supposedly imparting wisdom onto is absorbed in his every move.

Klaus sighs and says: “Remember this. The winner takes it all.”

And he walks back to his cabin.

The circle disperses as soon as he gets up. He’s not five paces away when a few begin to latch onto him. A man at his shoulder is jabbering, holding a clipboard. “-and if the city allows it, we should be able to double the square footage. Wouldn’t that be something, Prophet?”

“Uh-huh.” 

He reaches the door of his cabin. Klaus opens the door, stops, and then shuts it again. He turns back to clipboard man. Had he imagined something?

“What’s that?” Klaus asks, pointing at his neck.

The four or five others who had glommed on watch, captivated, as clipboard guy reaches up and pulls a silver chain out from under his blue tunic. 

“This, Prophet?”

“Yeah that, what the hell is that?” Klaus crosses his arms, uninterested in appearing graceful. He hadn't imagined it- dog tags hang around the man's neck.

“Oh, it’s not what you think!” the man says quickly, smiling widely. “I would never- no. This is actually a tribute to you, Prophet.”

He holds the dog tags out for Klaus to examine. Klaus doesn’t take them.

“I had my hands marked in your honor, of course, but- I wanted to do more. And I always see you wearing these- I just thought it was such a powerful protest, yknow.”

Klaus stays frozen. “Protest?”

“Well, yeah,” the guy chuckles nervously. “With everything happening in ‘Nam, I think it’s really cool for us to send a nonviolent message like that. Like, that could be any of us over there. It’s really powerful.”

It isn’t clear if the tags say anything on them at all. Klaus doesn't want to know if they do. On impulse, his fingers fly up to close around the ones around his own neck.

“These aren’t…” his breath shortens a bit. “It’s not a protest. Stop wearing them.”

The group of them exchange puzzled looks. “But-?”

“That’s all I have for today," he says to his feet. "Stop wearing them, tell everyone to stop.”

And he disappears behind the door.

They don’t try to follow up- he hears them shuffle around on the porch for a few minutes before leaving altogether. Klaus sinks into a chair. He hasn’t felt this struck by Vietnam in months. Something about that guy, that stranger’s tags glistening in the sun, mocking him- that’s all it takes to put him there, like he’d never left.

“What just happened?” Ben appears across from him. “They’re all talking out there about some new dress code thing.”

Klaus keeps his hands firmly over his eyes. “Some of them have started wearing dog tags.”

Ben stays silent for a long moment. “Jesus.”

Sometimes he’s glad it’s Ben he’s stuck with forever and not one of his other siblings- with Ben, Klaus never has to explain.

As they sit, watching the afternoon slide by through the window, Klaus decides once and for all to make a run for it.

It’s November- in a few weeks, Kennedy will be shot. He’s put it off long enough. If he wants to save him, he’d better suck it up and do it now. 

Closing his hand again around Dave’s tags, Klaus wishes for the millionth time in three years that he was still fighting for his life in the jungle. Maybe he'll make a trip into the woods later today.

* * *

_February_ _21st, 1968_

  
There is no cosmic waiting room. No shifting clouds, pearly gates. No fire and brimstone.

He’d been laying down, coated in slick mud, his own blood mixed in with it so it was all the same awful colour. He’d felt Klaus’ hands, hot like always. It’s one of Dave’s last thoughts- Klaus' hands are always hot.

When he opens his eyes again, he’s barely three feet away. He sees the same scene, Klaus screaming as he holds onto Dave for dear life. Dave wants to shout at him: _there isn’t time, you need to go._

Sarge is trying to call it quits, demanding they retreat, but Klaus won’t move. His arms are locked around Dave, his face screwed up in such anguish Dave can’t bear to look at him too long- he hadn't wanted to die, but he would have taken it if it meant Klaus went home. He hadn't imagined this part.

He wonders what would happen if he ran over and tried to haul Klaus away himself. He must know that the last thing Dave wants is for him to follow. _Move, asshole. Move._

If the situations were reversed, would Dave hold on that tightly as two of his friends tried to pry him away? Would he have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, from Klaus lying motionless in the dirt? He thinks he would be. Klaus does. 

It seems like Klaus thinks he’s reasoning with them, like he's trying to explain why they can’t leave him there. But all that comes out of his mouth are heaves, pleas, Dave’s name a few more times. He’s never seen Klaus fight like this, not even in the bloodiest battle. It ends up taking three guys to carry him back into the brush.

Dave stands stock still behind the sandbags as Klaus grows smaller in the distance. His cries fade.

What was today’s date again?

* * *

_Fall, 1963_

  
Klaus hands Allison a towel for her wet dress. They sit cross-legged on his floor, like the good old days. She cackles at the painting on the mantle, insists Klaus recreate the pose for her, laments the loss of Instagram when he agrees.

He’d manage to block out most of his grief for his siblings' loss since he’s been back in the 1960’s. He doesn't realize just how successful at that he'd been before now. But having Allison here again is the first truly good thing that’s happened to him in god knows how long. She tells him more about her husband, her life in Dallas and beyond. She presents it all so humbly, as if the life she’s built here is less exciting than his. He wouldn't have when he was younger, but now, Klaus thinks her quiet life sounds more enviable than all his new shiny bullshit put together.

“What about you?” she asks. “I haven’t heard about anyone special in your life since, god, I don’t know. The kid at the movie theater when we were sixteen.”

“Don’t remind me. I’ll find my way back to 2019 and end Vanyapocalpyse myself if it means I get that eight dollars back." She laughs, but he sees she won’t drop the topic so easily. Klaus sighs. “I don’t know. There’s- someone.”

“There is! You _have_ to-“

“It’s complicated.” He cuts her off so quickly that Allison bites her lip. 

“Okay,” she nods. “I can handle complicated.”

She listens to Klaus quietly as he tells her as much as he can. She asks the occasional question, but for the most part keeps her face composed in careful concern as he gets to the end of his tale- his quest to find Dave and stop him from enlisting before the 22nd rolls around.

“Have you tried just... talking to him?” she says. 

“Twice,” Klaus stares at his hands, now clasping hers. “Both times I pussied out before I could even go in, I- it’s too much. And the worst part is that….” he trails off, hoping that Allison will let it slide.

She doesn't. “What’s the worst part?” 

“What if,” Klaus takes a deep breath, stares still more intently at the rug, her shoe, anything but her or the gleaming silver chain dangling in his periphery below. “What if I’m not seeing him because I don’t _want_ him to stay home…? Al, I would do that. I would let him go there just so I know he- he meets me, just so I could feel like it happens. Messed up, right?”

“Sure,” she answers calmly. “But it’s not true. Trust me. You’re not nearly as selfish as you’d like to think.”

“Yeah? Your last experience with my love life was when I got scammed by a Teen Gap model at a movie theater.”

“...But it’s not like you were scamming him, right?”

Klaus finally meets her eye, feeling younger, frailer than he has in years. When they were kids, the two of them used to joke that they were twins. But now, an apocalypse and a war later, Allison feels like his big sister, doling out sage advice at a slumber party.

Klaus thanks God for that. Wherever that little holy bitch may be.

  
Later that afternoon, Klaus stands outside of Glen Oaks Hardware Store for a third time in three years. This time, he can’t see anyone inside.

If he sees Dave, he isn’t going to run. He’s going to see the blue eyes, and he’s going to stay still. He’s going to hear the voice, the one that had sang to him in the trees, and he’s going to keep talking. He’s going to keep talking until Dave can walk away having never loved him. That’s what good people do. Klaus is a good person. Klaus is a good person. 

He repeats it to himself and opens the door. He can’t get that stupid song out of his head.

**Author's Note:**

> theres a line in 'the man who shot liberty valance' that goes: "when nothing she said could keep her man from going out to fight" and thats something i have been thinking thoughts about. anyway.
> 
> find me on tumblr!!! shameful-shameless.tumblr.com
> 
> and if you liked it, a comment would really make my day!!!


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